Remortgage required for those on Standard Variable rates.

Are you paying too much for your mortgage? Borrowers paying the lenders Standard Variable Rate have seen their repayments rise considerably due to interest rate hikes. In 2003 the average interest rate for a standard variable rate mortgage was 4.19%. By March 2007 this had risen to 6.15% For a borower with a mortgage of £140,000 this is an increase of over £2,700 a year that they have to find.

Sam Cook from WFM commented " Lenders SVR are normally about 2 per cent above Bank of England base rates. We are still finding borrowers who can save considerable amounts of money by switching from a lenders SVR to a fixed, tracker or discounted rate. Normally there are no fees or very small fees charged by the lender to switch. This also applies to any borrower whose mortgage is due to change to a SVR this year."

Do you have the wrong type of mortgage? If you think that you were not given the best deal, tell us about it.

Jerome Thompson www.you-can-remortgage

Endowment Mortgages still cause for complaint

New mortgage endowment cases made up almost half of the the complaints made to the Financial Ombudsman Service last year.
Walter Merricks, chief ombudsman, said : " this year marked the completion of over 500,000 financial disputes by the ombudsman since we were set up in 2001. Half of these complaints have involved mortgage endowments."
Sam Cook from Reef Mortgages said "Many of our clients are still unsure of the best way to utilise existing endowment plans. It is important that they seek advice to ensure that there are no nasty shocks at the end of their mortgage term."
Jerome Thompson Cert PFS www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk

Home Information Packs Delayed

In an embarassing climb down, the government delayed the introduction of Home Information Packs by eight weeks. Ruth Kelly announced the delay in the Commons on Tuesday. She also said that Hips will only be needed on houses with at least four bedrooms with the pack being phased in for smaller houses once more energy assessors are trained.
Jerome Thompson www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk

House prices up -- but increases slowing.

House prices have risen .4% in May, the slowest increase since 2006 and down from 3.6% in April. Average house prices now stand at £237,361; up 13.1 per cent on a year ago.
Jerome Thompsson www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk

Mortgage lending up 18%

Figures released by the Council of Mortgage Lenders show mortgage lending of £28.8 billion in April. This is n 18% increase on last Aprils figure of £24.4 billion.

CML Director General Michael Coogan said "Lending is still strong, but it does seem to be stabilising in 2007. We expect lending in 2007 to be about 4 - 5% higher than in 2006.
Jerome Thompson www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk

No reduction in house prices

Despite there being no let up in the increase in house prices most mortgage brokers seem confident there will be no house price crash.
Samantha Cook, Senior Mortgage Consultant from Wiseman Financial Management said " Demand for homes is still high and there remains a shortfall in the supply of housing stock. It seems very unlikely that we could see a fall in prices this year.

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Self Employed have confidence in future.

Despite four interest rate rises since August , two thirds of the self employed are confident about business prospects for the next six months, according to latest research.

Nearly half (48%) are confident that business turnover will increase over the next 12 months, an increase of 5% over february figures, with a quarter of all self employed expecting to take on more staff during the next year.

Home Information Packs --The latest

Home Information Packs are set to roll out on the 1st June after the Tories failed in their attempt to scrap them, loosing a commons vote by 306 votes to 234, giving the government a majority of 72.
How will HIPS affect you? Tell us your story.
Jerome Thompson www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk

House prices up

House prices rose in April despite more homes being available on the market, according to figures released by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Average house prices hit £206,890 in March up from £204,556 in February.

The introduction of Home Information Packs in June has seen an increase in properties on the market as sellers look to market their property without having to pay for the packs.

Jerome Thompson www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk

Mortgages for the Self Employed

Are you self employed or do you have income from more than one source ? If so, are you one of the 47% who did not know they could afford a mortgage according to a recent survey.

The survey revealed that 47% of those questioned did not know anything about self certified mortgages and a further 24% had heard of them but did not know how they worked.

Jerome Thompson www.you-can-remortgage.co.uk